A Mother’s Day Note

admin April 28, 2012 No Comments

My graphic artist, Kyle, is so sweet.  She created this adorable Mother’s Day note template that she would like to share with you to use with your students.  She remembers writing a letter to her mother on a note just like this when she was a child.  Awwww.   She made a colored template and a black and white template with wider lines for  younger students and thinner lines for older students.  You may wish to use the black and white tempate if you’d like your students to color their own flowers. Click the following link:  I Love My Mom Note Wide Lines Click the following link:  I Love My Mom Thin Lines Click the following link:  I Love My Mom Wide Lines

[Read More...]

Strike Me Out! Fun Baseball Game for Addition

admin April 25, 2012 No Comments

I drive past the baseball fields everyday on my way home from work.  It’s always fun seeing the baseball fields filled with kids playing this all American sport. To celebrate the beginning of baseball season, I’m posting this fun little freebie for practicing addition facts to 12.  Enjoy! Click HERE or on the above pic to download this freebie.  

[Read More...]

April Showers Bring May Flowers Vowel Sorting Activity

admin April 23, 2012 No Comments

I know what you must be thinking.  ANOTHER vowel sorting activity.  I know… but it is SO important that our kinders and first graders learn to read and write those vowels correctly.  Even when you think they mastered the sounds months ago, it’s always good to go back and review to be sure this skill is solid.  Adding a little variety and a seasonal-twist helps keep what may seem like a drill and practice activity fun!  My inspiration for this activity–of course, a stroll through the aisles of our local Walmart.  I found these cute little watering cans in the toy section towards the back of our store.  They were only $1.00. If you cannot find the watering cans, a flower

[Read More...]

Why Students Reverse Letters

admin April 20, 2012 No Comments

  Many parents become quite concerned when looking at their child’s writing and see that their child is confusing letters such as b/d, p/q or m/w.  Letter and word reversals have become so strongly associated with dyslexia that it’s no wonder why parents are anxious when they see such confusions.  As educators, it is important for us to understand why students reverse letters and to provide parents with the best information possible. Learning to Read Before we talk about reversals, let’s take a moment and think about what we are asking children to do when we are teaching them to read.  In our system, learning to read is based on the alphabetic principle.  This means that a child must understand

[Read More...]

Ohhhh…. The Things You Can Do With an Oil Drip Pan

admin April 10, 2012 No Comments

You have to hand it to teachers– they are SO creative!  Who would ever think an auto oil drip pan would make such an awesome center activity.  If you are joining me on my “Cookie Sheet Challenge” I know what you’re thinking.  An oil drip pan is “technically” not a cookie sheet.  I have tons of paint left in that spray can and I’m desperate.   Just think of it as a really big cookie sheet!  To make this activity, I painted my oil drip pan with navy blue metal paint.  Since I wanted to use the pan for letter/sounds, I used white electrical tape to make the squares.  I then mounted the drip pan  (aka really big cookie sheet) by running

[Read More...]

Four Ways to Build Reading Fluency

admin April 5, 2012 No Comments

I’m on spring break now and before leaving had to decide which book to pack for reading on the beach.  I came oh so close to purchasing the Hunger Games, but grabbed Timothy Rasinski’s book The Fluent Reader from our loaning library at work instead  (sad, I know).    I’ve read the book before and remember thinking it was filled with great strategies for improving reading fluency.  What I didn’t remember, however, was that the first chapter was devoted to an interesting account of the history of oral reading and silent reading in American education as well as pointing out the drawbacks of current practices such as round robin reading.   Here’s a snip-it of what I’ve read: It hasn’t been until

[Read More...]

Helping Students Move to Blending Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Words

admin April 1, 2012 No Comments

Our seven school districts changed from using the DIBELS 6th Edition to the DIBELS Next this school year.  Following each benchmark assessment we were just a little bit nervous (actually, really nervous) as to what our data would look like.  Would any changes we see be a result of the change in the assessment or as a result of a change in instruction?  When comparing our data using the DIBELS Next to our past assessment trends, one of the most striking differences came at the winter benchmark assessment for first grade.  Although we maintained the percentage of students performing at benchmark, we now had many more falling within the intensive range.  Yikes!  After analyzing all the data, our school teams felt that the new requirement

[Read More...]

Follow Us

Popular Posts

Copyright © 2025 · Make Take & Teach · Site by Bit Social Media